this is bbc news. the headlines... iran acknowledges that serious damage was done to its nuclear facilities during the us and israeli bombings. washington approves $30 million of funding for a controversial us and israeli-backed group set up to deliver aid in gaza. the drc and rwanda are expected to sign a historic deal to end decades of brutal fighting. the battle of narratives between washington and tehran over us strikes on iran's nuclear sites continues. here's our north america editor, sarah smith.

under the cover of night, these american b-2 bombers left missouri to fly all the way to iran and back in one 36-hour mission. they successfully hit their targets. but an early preliminary intelligence assessment has enraged donald trump, as it says they may not have damaged iran's nuclear sites as much as he claimed this weekend. iran's key nuclear enrichment facilities have been completely and totally obliterated. he ordered the pentagon to give a presentation today that was supposed to demonstrate how much damage the bunker-buster bombs had done. video of a weapons test demonstrated how the massive ordnance penetrator can pierce solid rock to reach underground facilities. it took 15 years to perfect these weapons, specifically designed with iran's nuclear sites in mind. the first bomb dropped on the underground complex in fordow broke through a concrete cap installed to protect the site. 11 more bombs fell precisely down ventilation shafts and exploded.

the pilots stated, quote, this was the brightest explosion that i've ever seen. it literally looked like daylight. but there was no new evidence of how much damage had been done or whether enriched uranium had been moved before the attack. if you want to know what's going on at fordow, you'd better go there and get a big shovel because no-one's under there right now, no-one's under there able to assess, and everyone's using reflections of what they see. israel says the air strikes destroyed the critical infrastructure at the fordow site. the international atomic energy agency says the centrifuges are no longer operational. even the iranian government admits its nuclear installations have been badly damaged. these returning pilots should be treated as heroes, says the defense secretary, accusing the press of undermining them personally by quoting from a leaked intelligence assessment. now their mission is accomplished, their political masters are at war with the media about how the outcome is being reported. sarah smith, bbc

news, washington. japan has executed a death row inmate for the first time in three years. takahiro shiraishi was arrested in 2017, after body parts were found in his flat. he was sentenced to death for murdering nine people, mostly young women. the 34-year-old was dubbed the twitter killer after he admitted to approaching his victims on the social media platform. the bbc's shaimaa khalil reports from tokyo. the case of takahiro shiraishi, the man known here in japan as the twitter killer, shocked this country, and for years gained so much media and public attention. the justice minister, who today issued the execution order, said that the bereaved families and the victims themselves suffered beyond imagination. details of this case are very distressing and they involve suicidal victims. it all came into light in 2017 when police were searching for a woman who turned out to be one of his victims. her dismembered body was found in his flat near tokyo.

shiraishi then admitted to killing nine people. they were suicidal victims who he was in contact with on twitter, now known as x. he told them that he could help them die, and in some cases claimed that he would kill himself alongside them. nine dismembered bodies were found in cooler boxes and in tool boxes at his house. local media here described it as the house of horrors. during his trial, the prosecution asked for his execution. his defence team, however, asked for a more lenient sentence, citing murder by consent. and what was remarkable during the trial was that the killer himself, shiraishi, contradicted his defence team and said that he killed those victims without consent. these murders pushed twitter to change its rules, and it said that members should not discuss suicide or self-harm on the platform. when he was sentenced in 2020, hundreds of people came to watch the verdict.

at the time, the judge described him as cunning and cruel and completely responsible for his murders. today, he was executed - the first time that japan enacts capital punishment in three years in a case that has really stunned the nation and pushed a big debate on how suicide should be discussed online. our correspondent from tokyo. next week marks one year since sir keir starmer entered number 10 and his first 12 months in office have generated plenty of headlines. as you have been seen. our chief political correspondent henry zeffman has been following the prime minister's progress. and as big ben strikes ten, the exit poll is predicting a labour landslide. how did sir keir starmer go from that... ..to massive unpopularity? i've been trying to answer why the prime minister's political

honeymoon faded so fast for a new radio four programme - starmer's stormy year. when i caught up with him recently in kyiv, i asked the prime minister to reminisce about that exit poll moment. i was sitting on a settee with my wife and our two kids. i wanted to be with them. the moment the exit poll came through was an incredible moment. i was conscious of the sense of responsibility that that would bring and what my role would be and what i must do to rise to the challenge. but was the labour party really ready? in his first interview about those early days, that's what i asked simon case, until recently the head of the civil service. there were some elements where not enough thinking had been done. there were some areas where the prime minister and his team and, you know,

including me as his sort of core team, knew what we wanted to do, but we weren't communicating that effectively across all of government. any prime minister and any government would have struggled with what they inherited. i don't think there are many incoming prime ministers who'd faced such challenging circumstances. once inside downing street, things only got bleaker for labour. we have inherited a projected overspend of £22 billion. frankly, things will get worse before they get better. the start of a summer where the nation was on edge. this spawned one of the major attacks on starmer from the right. the idea these rioters were treated more harshly than others. two-tier keir. starmer's attorney general, giving me his first broadcast interview, says this. what some people were seeking to do, bringing up two tier, was to make a comparison with the way that people were being treated for trying to kill police officers -

and i want to reiterate that, kill police officers - with the response to protests on the streets of london. it's frankly disgusting to start to draw those type of comparisons. the prime minister, the chancellor and the deputy prime minister will no longer accept donations for clothing. as summer became autumn, new problems accumulated with remarkable speed. simon case thinks starmer was naive about those gifts. for some in the public, it was worse than that. the prime minister sacked his chief of staff, sue grey, after three months of bitter briefing, which threatened to engulf his government, to the frustration of one former cabinet minister. you were reading the papers and you just thought, this sounds like the back end of boris johnson's government or rishi sunak's government, doesn't sound like a labour government with a historic mandate and a historic landslide. we should be all pulling in the same direction here, and instead we've immediately turned on each other. and that was really, really disappointing to see that culture had immediately been instilled at the

heart of number 10. and then... look what happened. is this crazy? ..everything changed. can i present the letter from the king? thank you. this new pm had to adapt, and fast, on the world stage. starmer's deft handling of trump gave the uk its most defined diplomatic role since brexit. it sharpened his definition here at home too. but it came too late for many voters, some of them turning to other parties, including nigel farage's reform uk. within weeks of the local elections, the government had ditched its winter fuel policy. a senior cabinet minister acknowledged to me how unpopular it had become. if i'm being honest, i think the reaction to it since the decision was announced was probably stronger than we thought, and that it became this

leitmotif or this real symbol, and politics can be like that. one mistake fixed, but the most serious political crisis yet - on welfare - came along soon after. it's been a difficult first year. the storm might only just be beginning. henry joins me now. how does this week's welfare crisis reflect the themes of what we have seen over keir starmer's first year in office? make no mistake a big reason why he had to back down over welfare is because it is such a serious issue for so many labour mps who feel they did not come into politics to cut welfare. but i was also about other things, bad handling of his parliamentary colleagues over the course of the year, a general election campaign which perhaps did not set up in enough detail what this government would do. why is that? you heard from simon case, former head of the civil service, pretty damn words, before they came into office, he believes they simply had not done enough thinking about what

they were doing government. where does this leave the prime minister's authority going into his second year? massively weakened. if you take the combined effect of the winter fuel youturn and what the government has now done on welfare, you have to say that if you are a labour rebel annoyed with something that government is doing, you have to get colleagues together and push the government and they will fold. a real challenge for keir starmer first to stabilise the mood in the labour party which is absolutely accurate right now and then to find a way to reassert authority. henry,

thank you for being with us on

bbc news. the gates have been open at glastonbury for a couple of days, but the festival properly gets under way later today. acts will take to the main stages for the first time with 'the 1975 headlining on the pyramid stage tonight. and bbc radio 4 will also be making an appearance at the festival. let's speak to our culture reporter, noor nanji, who's there. i hope you have got your wellies and you are geared up and ready for a radio four rave? funny you mention wellies, it rained quite a lot last night. luckily it has dried out now, looking like a sunny weekend ahead. we are at the uk's biggest festival, also one of the biggest music festivals in europe, glastonbury festival has officially opened, it is today when the main stages will be opening. thousands of people already here. we are expecting 140,000 people to be here over the course of the weekend. plenty for them to enjoy. loads of art, culture, really about

the music, we are expecting a 1975, they will be headlining tonight, we also have neil young, olivia rodrigo, the headliners, but also loads more in store. one of the people here enjoying things is anita rani presenter of woman's hour and she will be here for the weekend which is exciting. what are you most looking forward to? as soon as we finish talking, i will go down stairs, said that the picnic table and present life and the programme we have got, an interview with self-esteem, and incredible country singer performing live, jam supernova talking about doechii, i'm very excited to see them, performing live. discussing her meteoric rise, women in hip-hop, later on tonight, i will go to the park stage to see self-esteem. very excited to see, this will aid me, en vogue. if you see it on

tv, here in person, you cannot quite grasp just how big this place is, the scale is enormous. i will hotfoot from en vogue and make a mad dash to the other stage to the pyramid to see alanis morissette. my evening lined up going to plan. really great choices, i cannot wait to see doechii myself. you have to be moving around, dashing from one stage to another, you have been here before, what is it about glastonbury that is so special that brings people back again and again? even now when i walk around, it is getting your head around the fact this incredible man michael eavis, 55 years ago, he had this vision to turn his dairy farm into a place where people could come and experience music and spread peace and love. the minute you enter the site, there is just a feeling, that feeling comes out

of everyone's pores, full of joy and freedom, and a week and when grown adults who may have very serious lives and wear a suit to work every day can dress in sparkles and be children for an entire weekend. it is a place of pure expression and freedom. and that feeling of just not having a care in the world. you leave the outside world over there and experience something completely different here. the human interaction, that sense of community, people talk to people, everyone smiles at people, a really refreshing existence, you think, why can't this happen in everyday life? whatever is happening here, why don't we do this all the time? really special place, and when the sun is shining, no better. completely agree. the rumour mill is in overdrive about secret, who do you think will

be there? i think pulp, maybe patchwork, maybe, you probably know more than me, you know the stuff. i will go with the flow. if pulp play, very happy?. on cue, i hope you enjoy the festival, sounds like you will. -- very happy customer. thank you. some of the things i am excited about scene, a jamaican reggae, bollywood queer night, so much more that goes on apart from the main stages. i'm glad the sun has come out after rain, enjoy, noor nanji at glastonbury, you can hear woman's hour. you can hear woman's hour on bbc radio or

the bbc sounds app. if you're in the uk and you failed to get a ticket for glastonbury, don't fret - you can see coverage from the festival here on the bbc. there'll be live performances on bbc one, bbc two and bbc four, or follow it all on the bbc iplayer. plenty more on the bbc news website as well. let's focus now on a conflict in central africa and a peace deal which could bring an end to decades of violence, involving the democratic republic of congo and rwanda. their foreign ministers are in washington where they are expected to officially sign a historic deal today to end fighting in the mineral-rich border region. president trump took credit for the deal and said his administration had stopped a very vicious war. let's speak to our senior africa correspondent anne soy who's in nairobi. how much credit goes to the us president for this? well, when you look at the role it is plain, it is critical, but also there has been mediation going on in the region, brokered by regional leaders like the

angolan president and also lately by qatar, borrowing bits from the different deals that were discussed, mediated by those two countries and the east african region as well and putting them together and hoping finally they are going to have a solution to this conflict. after this many decades of violence, what has changed? what has been the stumbling block that has been overcome to get to the position of a peace deal? well, the biggest challenge at the moment in the mineral rich region of eastern drc is m23 made a resurgence at the end of 2022 and has been taking over swathes of territory this year they seized two major cities at the border region, goma and another. therefore the congolese government has been under immense pressure to bring an end to the conflict. but it is complicated also by the role

of rwanda from across the border which has been accused of backing the m23 rebels who now control parts of that region. and they are also alleged to have boots on the ground, they are alleged to have sent their creeps into congolese territory. we expect this deal is going to address the issues of respect for territorial integrity, withdrawal of rwandan troops from congolese soil, and the laying down of arms. m23 as well as a rebel group rwanda has been saying it is working alongside the congolese forces, forces for the democratic liberation of rwanda. so it has been a long process and this is the closest it has got to finding a solution. people are really holding their breath and hoping it will hold. senior africa correspondent, speaking to us from nairobi.

the home of hollywood actor brad pitt has been ransacked by thieves. police in los angeles said three suspects entered the property through a front window.

live from london, this is bbc news. -- live from the israel- gaza border, i'm mark lowen. this is bbc news. washington approves 30 million dollars of funding for a controversial us- and israeli-backed group set up to deliver aid in gaza. iran acknowledges that serious damage was done to its nuclear facilities during the us and israeli bombings. i am luxmy gopal in london with your other main story is hour. -- this hour. a massive climb-down - the prime minister caves in to labour rebels over changes to the benefits system. and a norfolk teenager becomes

the first patient in europe